


Dancing Embers

by Helasdottir



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helasdottir/pseuds/Helasdottir
Summary: If he could liken this feeling to anything, it’s as if cool air passes through the inside of his body while someone tries to crush his ribcage. Nines says something about romantic feelings, it sounds like a question, but Gavin can’t understand it through the fog of his own fear. He needs to press on and say what needs to be said.
Relationships: Tina Chen/Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	Dancing Embers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StrangeNoise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeNoise/gifts).



> For the wonderful Noise ❤

It’s something they started for comfort; no strings attached. The problem is that Gavin doesn’t know how to stop his heart from attaching strings where it shouldn’t, leaving him with the terrifying reality of being in love with his best friend. His best friend _with benefits_ , currently tracing her fingertips through his chest hair in the afterglow of their second round.

Gavin wishes his heart would stop betraying his anxiety, pounding with an intensity he’s sure Tina must feel. She doesn’t comment on it. If she brought it up, they’d need to discuss why he’s anxious, and he’d be cornered into confessing and consequently being rejected. At best, they’d have a few awkward weeks and settle back into how their friendship used to be. At worst, she’d never speak to him again.

Maybe he’s overthinking it, maybe she won’t care enough to make a big deal of his feelings – Tina is very laid back, which helps their friendship quite a lot. The problem then is that Gavin has too few comforts in life, and he won’t let his overblown attachments ruin this one. It would be worse if he confessed and she agreed to a relationship, only for him to find out it was another infatuation due to their admittedly amazing sex. His feelings would fade and it would make for an awkward, painful breakup all around.

Gavin has reasons to doubt his own feelings. His heart is fickle and restless, he’s easily bored of boyfriends and girlfriends alike. After a few months together, every little thing they do starts to get on his nerves, someone more interesting comes along, and he picks fights for no reason until they get sick of him. They always get sick of him. Tina just hasn’t yet, and maybe – maybe – if he keeps her just a little distant, she’ll be the first to break the streak.

That’s not the only problem. Gavin’s life can never be that simple, never narrowed down to one single flaw. The thing he knows would turn Tina away from him is the one she constantly teases him about: his huge, not-at-all discreet crush on his android partner.

In Gavin’s defense, he tried to resist it. When Nines first joined the DPD, android employment laws still freshly written, resentment over Connor and the fear of losing his job to a _plastic_ was still Gavin’s energetic fuel. He wanted nothing to do with Nines, not as a professional and not as a person, until the damned android nearly snapped his desk in half when Fowler threatened to hand off one of their cases. Nines had seemed so very human in that moment, his fist clenched as he assured the captain that he could solve it.

“Ground control to Major Rat-man,” Tina says, her trimmed nails scratching gently over his sternum. Gavin shivers and blinks to adjust his eyes, realizing he spaced out for a good five minutes. _Fuck_. “You doing okay, Gav?”

“Shit.” Laughing dryly to cover up the weight of his thoughts, Gavin knocks his forehead carefully against Tina’s. He knows she won’t buy it if he says he’s only tired. “Sorry, I got caught up thinking about that goddamn crime scene again. It just keeps happening.”

“You were too involved.” Her hand cups his face, thumb tracing the line above his stubble, and he sighs. With his eyes closed, Gavin makes his cover-up a reality. He can’t stop the images from resurfacing, the sense of dread they all felt when it was declared a cold case. “There’s nothing you can do now. If something new comes up, maybe they’ll-“

“I know. I know all of this crap, I’m just – I hate being in over my head.” Gavin swallows, remembers that he doesn’t truly want to discuss a gruesome murder, and opens his eyes to face her worry. “I know you’re not here to deal with my crappy brain. Do you wanna order pizza?”

“Listen to me,” Tina starts with a reprimanding tone, though there’s an undercurrent of humor to it. Good. She knows he doesn’t want to dwell. “I am always here to deal with your crappy brain. I’m your friend, not someone who only comes over for the sex. If you start with that shit, I’ll make you sleep on the couch in your own house.”

“You’re not my wife,” Gavin protests, lightly pinching her side. She squirms and shoves him away, they both laugh, and the pressure on his skull lifts.

“You wish.”

“No way, you hog all the blankets. _And_ you kick in your sleep, which is rude as fuck.”

“Only because you sleep like a starfish and keep pushing me into the wall.”

“You like it when I push you into the wall.” Gavin grins, catching her hand in the air before she can slap his shoulder for that. “Don’t lie, Tee.”

“You’re such an ass.”

“I’m a hot ass, though.”

Tina tries to wrestle her arm free, attempting to seem annoyed for all of two seconds before matching Gavin’s smile and breaking out into a new wave of laughter. He holds on just to prolong it, causing an impromptu wrestling match until they roll over on the bed and she pins him down.

“The pizza is on you,” she declares, triumphant from her seat on his upper thighs. “I already paid for Chinese on Sunday.”

They end up eating extremely oily slices of pepperoni pizza from Gavin’s living room rug, Tina dressed only in panties and one of his old shirts. It’s not something new to them, but it still makes his heart ache. This feels right, comfortable, but this comfort isn’t his to have.

Work brings him some reprieve from the thoughts that his feelings will ruin what he and Tina have. She is off with her uniforms and Gavin gets to replace one spiral of self-loathing with another, spending his days trying not to fixate on the soft curve of Nines’s mouth when he talks.

Far too many hours of his day are spent wondering if those lips would feel warm or cool, if they would be weirdly artificial or terrifyingly human to kiss. Gavin is afraid to ever find out, worried he might overreact to the physical reminder of Nines’s nature and cause a scene that would be uncomfortable for all involved. He’s almost thankful his feelings are one-sided, despite the terrible hollow it carves into his heart.

It’s far too difficult to ignore Nines, how he calculates Gavin’s caffeine intake based on his morning scans – something Gavin has stopped complaining about – and how dedicated he is to solving cases, whether it’s digging through an investigation or interrogating a suspect. Gavin tries not to get lost in that worried furrow of Nines’s brow when they hit a wall, or the subtle glitches of his synthetic skin when he has to prevent himself from punching something. It’s almost impossible to think he once believed Nines to be emotionless.

“Detective.” Nines always addresses him in the same way. Formal, robotic, but somehow warm. Gavin is probably just projecting, though the tall cup of specialty coffee placed on his desk argues otherwise. “I took the liberty of requesting an additional shot of expresso for you. I hope it is agreeable.”

“Yeah. Thanks, babe.” Gavin only realizes his slip-up when he already has the cup to his lips, and he hopes Nines won’t address it. The only way to ensure a diversion is to burn his tongue on the hot coffee, which is never a pleasant experience. “Fuck!”

Overestimating himself, Gavin spills some of the coffee onto his shirt and rushes to set the cup on the table, breathing with his mouth open to cool his tongue. Regardless of how awful it feels and how his adrenaline spikes from the pain, he feels an undeniable relief when Nines only moves in to steady him and give him stern warnings about how he should wait before drinking.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he insists, moving away from the firm but gentle hand that now rests on his shoulder. He feels ridiculous, sticking his tongue out to cool in the middle of the precinct, but their coworkers are unphased. “How ‘bout we just take a look at the screwdriver case?”

“If you refrain from injuring yourself, I will agree to it.”

“Yeah. ‘Course.” It’s a rather shallow promise and they both know it. Gavin goes in for another sip of the too-hot coffee under Nines’s disapproving gaze before pulling up the case files they need to study.

Twelve hours later, Gavin finds himself shaking from a combination of hypoglycemia and exhaustion. After using the bathroom, he spaces out while observing the dark circles around his eyes in the mirror, almost falling asleep right where he stands.

Nines tells him not to drink caffeine so late. In retrospect, it was sound advice: coffee only makes the shaking worse, and Gavin finds himself really wishing he had stopped and eaten a proper meal instead of fueling himself with nothing but snack food.

The pictures of the crime scene begin to blur together, and that’s when Gavin’s memory falters. He knows he somehow makes it into a cab, into his house, and into bed, but with no recollection of _how_. In the morning, he feels weighed down and nauseous, and his feet are gross from falling asleep without removing his shoes.

He undresses on the way to the shower, dropping clothes in the hallway to pick up when he feels more alive. The water does a good job of soothing a deep-set soreness Gavin had failed to identify as one of the sources of his discomfort, and washing away the night sweat is nearly therapeutic.

Maybe he spends more time than he should under the hot stream, first to clean himself and then to relieve a different form of pent-up stress, but Gavin isn’t worried about being late to work. He’s always on time and Fowler has let Hank off the hook enough times that it can be used as a bargaining chip if he ever needs it.

Once he’s dry and dressed once more, bare-footed for the sake of letting his skin breathe, Gavin brews his first coffee of the day and downs two cups of water to combat dehydration in the meantime. For an approximation of what he sees as a healthy breakfast, a triple chocolate cereal bar does the trick.

It’s another long day at work, but Nines brings Gavin a muffin alongside his daily coffee. He barely has time to swallow it all down before they need to move out to a crime scene. The early excitement aside, Gavin takes his lunch with Tina and finds his afternoon filled with witness interviews and paperwork.

The only comfort he gets from the day is knowledge that it precedes a rarity: his day off coincides with Tina’s, which means they get to spend it playing video-games and arguing over whether trying to catch up on forty years of One Piece episodes is incredible or stupid. It’s the bittersweet mixture of excitement and longing that fuels him through a pointless interrogation late in the afternoon, until it’s over and he finally gets to slump down in his chair and close his eyes.

“ _Jesus Christ!_ ” Gavin nearly jumps out of his skin when two hands rest on his shoulders, too close to his neck for comfort. They immediately retreat, and he relaxes once he sees Nines standing over him. “Shit. Warn a guy.”

“Apologies, detective. Your stress level and physical tension is far above even your average, I simply meant to provide some relief.” _Relief_. Nines says it casually, innocently, but Gavin’s mind goes south too fast and brings a slight dusting of color to his face. “It was not my intention to startle you.”

“Yeah. Um, yeah, I know that.” It dawns on him, as the adrenaline settles and his breathing returns to normal, that Nines meant to give him a massage. That’s far more intimacy than they have ever shared, particularly in the middle of the bullpen, but even the public embarrassment isn’t enough to keep him from being torn with regret for stopping it. “We need to file in those testimonies, right? D’you think we gotta crash the night shift again?”

“Captain Fowler has given me express orders to send you home ‘at a decent time’, so I have created a wireless connection to my terminal and allocated some processing power to advancing our paperwork.”

“You’re not my keeper,” Gavin bristles, crossing his arms and spinning the chair to get a better look at Nines. He seems a little distant, a little glitchy. “I thought that fucked with your system, interfacing with equipment that isn’t made for that.”

“It is not precisely an interface. This kind of connection does drain my power and require additional hours in stasis, but it is nothing critical.”

“It’s a shit idea to fry your software to save my fucked-up brain. You know that, right?”

“Gavin, please.” Ah. A first name. Gavin tries not to look surprised, but he feels a gentle bubble of warmth form around his heart. Nines doesn’t mean it as an endearment, but it’s better than nothing. “I am more advanced than that, this will not _fry_ my software. It is only a power drain.”

“Fine, tincan. You’ve asserted your dominance over the paperwork, I’m not gonna fight for it.”

It’s typical of Gavin to overwork himself, but his neck is already straining to hold up his head and every bone in his body feels heavy. Going home doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, particularly if it means he gets to really enjoy his day off.

He actually eats a homemade dinner, a decent serving of vegetables with rice and chicken. There’s no need to pump more coffee into his system after sundown, so he switches to water and tries not to fall asleep while waiting for Tina. He almost succeeds, but dozes off only minutes before the doorbell startles him awake.

“You look like hell,” is her greeting, and Gavin can only roll his eyes and let her in. “It’s strange to see you tired so early.”

“Yeah, well.” Gavin thinks he should elaborate an excuse, but he yawns instead of continuing his sentence, stopping to rub his eyes. “Did you eat before coming?”

“Yeah, I figured you’d be beat. Go to bed, I’ll turn off the TV and meet you there in a second.”

“I can-“

“Go.” With a wave of her hand, Tina dismisses him and makes her way towards the television. Gavin can’t really argue, so he locks the front door and drags his feet down the hallway until he reaches his bedroom. He has the time to change shirts before Tina shows up with a pitcher of water and two glasses for the bedside table, a new habit of hers.

Gavin falls asleep in a matter of minutes, too tired to feel embarrassed about being the little spoon. He’s surprised to wake in the same position, comfortable, warm, and with no new bruises from Tina’s nightly kicks. It seems both of them got some respite from the nightmares.

Slipping out of Tina’s arms, he mourns the warmth of her body against his back as he tries to walk silently towards the bathroom. After relieving himself, washing his face and thoroughly brushing and flossing, he feels more stable and clear-headed than he has in weeks.

“You doing okay over there?” Tina asks when he opens the door back to the bedroom, the last word trailing off into a high-pitched yawn. “Shit. I need one or ten days off to catch up on my beauty sleep before I end up like you.”

“Very funny, Tee.” Rolling his head back, Gavin hears his neck crack and groans in relief. “Is it bad if I have lasagna for breakfast? I could eat a family serving right now.”

“You shouldn’t waste that gingerbread pancake mix I got you. How about we make pancakes with some syrup and cream? That should hold you over until lunch.”

“Oh, fuck.” Gavin laughs when his stomach growls, mouth watering at the thought of such an indulgent breakfast. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

Neither of them bother to try and look polished. Tina only pushes her hair out of her face, but it still has more volume than usual and frizzes up on the side that rested on the bed. She has some mascara stains around her eyes and Gavin almost thinks it’s _cute_.

He’s given the task of making the actual pancakes while Tina whips cream and sets the table for them, warning him that they need to buy more maple syrup. It’s horribly domestic and, for a moment, he forgets that she doesn’t actually live here.

Both of them settle down with a pile of pancakes topped with quickly melting whip and the last of his maple syrup, as well as steaming mugs of coffee and milk – finished off with more whipped cream, of course. It’s the best breakfast Gavin has eaten in months.

They forego washing the dishes for now, only bothering to rinse them to prevent any wandering ants from growing interested. The daze after eating so much is the perfect time to check their phones, both of them laying on the living room rug and showing each other memes every few minutes.

Tina is the first one to suggest they do something, but neither of them is awake enough to be active. That’s how they settle on watching a vintage movie, half paying attention to it and half chatting. Gavin barely notices when mentions that Nines has been acting strange, but Tina zeroes in on it like an owl who saw a mouse.

“He was really worried the other day. I was surprised you even made it to work. He texted me to keep an eye out on you because he had to basically carry you to a cab.”

“I was a little shaky,” Gavin agrees, bringing his arms closer to his sides in a subconscious defensive posture. “It wasn’t that bad, I just crashed after all the coffee. Slept it off.”

“We both know that’s bullshit, but that’s not my point. He’s _worried_ , Gav.” Tina nudges his foot with her own, then smiles. “Fowler and I aren’t the only people in the world who give a shit.”

“Fuck off. He brought me breakfast and got all – well, touchy. He wanted to give me a massage.” Gavin will not, under any circumstance, tell her that he called Nines _babe_ the day before. He won’t tell her how badly he’s overthinking that timeline, hopeful and terrified of his own hope, what it would mean for him and Nines, what it would mean for him and Tina.

Tina’s exaggerated sigh is enough for him to know she’s tired of trying to convince him to do something about his feelings. If only she knew how complicated the situation truly is, she may not be so quick to judge.

“Look, I know you’re freaked out about being into an android, and maybe I’ve been giving you a bit of a hard time.” It’s not what he expects at all, and he turns to her in visible confusion. Whatever she has to say, it’s serious enough for her to pause the movie they’re definitely no longer watching. “I have an idea that might solve your problem.”

Those are dangerous words that, after some convincing and a long conversation, leave Gavin’s nerves on edge. He’s not sure why he agreed to Tina’s plan other than seeing it as a way for this suffering to be over, ripping the band-aid off at once and letting his heart bleed everywhere so he can deny it all and move on. If he’s lucky, he’ll find new friends.

It takes a week for them to set a date. Gavin barely sleeps for the first few days, tossing and turning in bed as he imagines all of the worst-case scenarios. There are plenty of those to keep him alert. The week is also incredibly awkward at work, with Gavin avoiding any and all eye contact with Nines while his android partner seems focused as ever.

They settle on the night before Gavin’s next day off. Tina says it’s to give him time to recover and sort himself out if things get too intense, for which he’s silently thankful. No one at work deserves to see him puffy and broken from crying, and having to spend an entire day beside Nines after disastrous rejection would be pure torture.

Anxiety spikes again as the date approaches. Gavin takes sleeping pills the night before, not wanting to be too exhausted when Nines and Tina show up after work. The entire time he sits at his desk during the day, his leg bounces restlessly. His thigh feels sore by the end of the afternoon, and he asks Fowler to let him go home an hour early. He claims to feel unwell, which isn’t far from the truth.

Tina texts him to make sure it’s still on, and he replies with a thumbs up. Instead of dwelling on his fears, Gavin decides he might as well prepare for the best-case scenario if only to keep himself busy. That means having one of those sugar-free, android-safe drinks on hand at home, trimming his beard, douching, showering, making the bed and then unmaking it because it looks ridiculous, and generally picking up the mess around the house.

They arrive together. _Of course_ they would arrive together. Gavin tries not to think of how many embarrassing things Tina has the power to tell Nines before this kind of encounter, and instead focuses really hard on not having a full-blown panic attack.

“Hey. Uh, come on in, there’s drinks in the kitchen.” It’s the worst way to welcome someone to a threesome, and Gavin doesn’t want to dwell on it. He closes the door behind them and moves right on. “I can get you something else if you don’t like this one, it’s one of those fancy flavored android dri-“

“Gav, slow down.” Tina speaks first, far too calm for what’s supposed to happen. Nines’s LED spins yellow beside her. “This might not have been the best idea.”

“I’m fine.”

“ _Gavin_.” This time it’s Nines, firm and serious and undeniably worried. Gavin swallows a lump that forms in his throat. “I believe both of us are under elevated levels of stress. Would it be agreeable if we discussed this night before deciding whether to proceed?”

“Shit. I mean, sure.” Gavin tells himself that his insides feel queasy from the douche, though he knows it’s pure anxiety by now. The three of them settle at the kitchen table, with Nines accepting one of the offered drinks – probably just out of politeness.

Tina reaches out to hold Gavin’s hand, which feels even more humiliating. This is the moment before his entire life collapses, and he’s only waiting for one of them to take the first step.

It’s Nines who decides to break the silence, after a long sip of the strange pink beverage in his cup. His LED is still bright yellow, feeding into Gavin’s fears with every pulse of color.

“I accepted the invitation for tonight under the assumption both of you desired my presence.” The words don’t register at once, the turn of the conversation completely different from what Gavin expected, and he meets Nines’s eyes to find them full of sadness. “Tina assured me your recent distance stemmed from anticipation, but I had reservations about your reaction to my affections. I believe it would be prudent for the three of us to be honest about what we desire.”

Tina squeezes his hand and Gavin takes a breath to try and process what he just heard. Nines thinks he’s unwanted, that Gavin’s discomfort is because he doesn’t want Nines, and that realization washes over him like a cool wave. Looking at Tina, he finds her expression soft and concerned, and his heart constricts. He needs to talk now, before he loses his courage.

“Okay. Fuck. That’s a lot to take in, but you’re kind of off track there. This is a pretty stupid idea, I guess, but it’s not because I don’t want it.” Gavin laughs because he has to, he has to release the pressure that built up in his chest over months. “Goddamn. Sorry, nervous laughter. I want you to be here but I’m shit at expressing my feelings and I can’t find a healthy way to deal with shit when I like someone.”

If he could liken this feeling to anything, it’s as if cool air passes through the inside of his body while someone tries to crush his ribcage. Nines says something about romantic feelings, it sounds like a question, but Gavin can’t understand it through the fog of his own fear. He needs to press on and say what needs to be said.

“I’m freaking out because if I want to be with you, I have to give up what I have with Tina, and that would suck. Not because of the sex, and please don’t freak out on me for this, Tee. I just – I’m real bad at keeping emotional distance, you know? And I couldn’t, I didn’t know how to tell you without ruining our friendship and making work weird, but now I guess it’s gonna be weird anyway.”

Even as the last words leave his mouth, Gavin’s body feels locked tight with tension. He’s not expecting Tina to stand up and hug him, or for Nines to have such a gentle expression when he manages to see through the tears. He slumps against Tina’s chest, exhaling heavily.

“Gav, you’re such a chronic overthinker. This is what’s been keeping you on edge for the last few months?” Closing his eyes and sniffling slightly, Gavin nods and feels his muscles relaxing. Being held is always comforting. “You don’t have to give up on anything.”

“What?”

Tina laughs and he feels it against the side of his face, followed by her leaning down to kiss his head. “Have you considered we both want to be with you, dumbass?”

“Functional polyamorous relationships are not unusual,” Nines adds, and Gavin feels like the biggest idiot on the planet. He laughs and sobs at the same time, pulling Tina against him until she settles on his lap, the tears now flowing freely down his cheeks.

He doesn’t notice when Nines stands from his chair, but he feels the warm hand against his bicep. Nines is using a heating protocol for comfort and it’s horribly, wonderfully touching. Gavin coughs and sobs his way through a complete breakdown, his whole body shaking from the intensity of the cathartic feeling, while Nines and Tina shower him in gentle affection.

He really wishes they had done this on the couch.

Sniffling heavily and rubbing his eyes free of the last tears, he coughs to clear his throat and leans his head back to look at Nines. He no longer looks as sad, though he is concerned. His LED is still yellow.

“I guess I am a fucking dumbass,” Gavin says softly, and he feels pride and love blossom in his core when Nines smiles. “Shit. I kinda ruined the whole plan you two had, didn’t I?”

“No, you just changed the order of things.” Tina kisses his chin and then his neck, briefly and in a way that is decidedly more comforting than sexual. “You should get some rest.”

“I kinda wanna clear things up first. I never dated more than one person, and it’s kind of confusing to think – like, would you be dating each other?”

“I am not opposed to initiating a romantic relationship with Tina.”

“I like both of you a whole lot,” Tina replies, and Gavin leans forward to touch their foreheads together. He feels Nines’s hand move to the back of his neck, gentle and steady. “Do you want to try it out?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.”

They stay a while longer in the kitchen, but moving to the bedroom proves to be a much better idea. Gavin ends up on the bed between them, trading soft kisses with both of them and benefiting entirely from Nines’s heating protocol. He loses all fears about finding an android partner too alien: Nines is definitely not human to the touch, and he doesn’t taste human, but it’s pleasant in an entirely different way.

At some point, he curls up between them and falls asleep, only to find them holding hands over his side when he wakes up. It seems they’ve been awake and talking, so it can’t have been more than a short nap, but Gavin feels refreshingly _alive_. For just this moment, all his other burdens seem lightened by the fact he removed two fears from his constant panic roster.

It’s almost dreamlike when Nines kisses him, Tina’s hands finding their way under his shirt to expose his sensitive chest. Every movement seems intense with raw emotion, and Gavin melts into their touch and reciprocates with equal fervor. When they finally find themselves undressed, a miscellaneous pile of clothes now resting at the foot of the bed, Gavin is nearly overwhelmed with the sensation of being the center of attention.

They take time to explore each other’s bodies, to caress every inch of skin, to kiss and taste and revel in the love that can be felt in the air. Even sex with Tina feels different without the fear, the one-sided pining and undercurrent of preemptive heartbreak. Gavin holds onto her and kisses her deeply as Nines rocks into him, drawing moans from both of them. With Nines inside of him and Tina around him, Gavin feels he might not be the unluckiest man in the world.

The afterglow is unreal, with Nines taking the time to clean and tidy before joining them for a post-coital cuddle. He lays with his arm over Gavin, head tucked in by his shoulder, joining hands with Tina over Gavin’s chest. Tina is pressed close to Gavin’s other side, his arm bound to eventually go numb from her using it as a pillow.

Gavin closes his eyes and smiles, exhausted and satisfied, knowing this isn’t a dream. His subconscious would never be this nice.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter @xhelasdottir.


End file.
